Paragon's Larry Johnson Asks Nielsen For More Info

January 20, 2015 at 4:41 AM (PT)

In a recent blog post, PARAGON MEDIA STRATAGIES Pres./North American Radio LARRY JOHNSON writes, "over the years with ARBITRON we grew accustomed to baseline information from which we viewed the radio industry. Radio clients use this information as an important part of making decisions. With the transition to NIELSEN some of that (proprietary) information is still out there, but the transition is a work in progress. Frankly, in some respects, we seem to have gone backwards since the transition from what we received from ARBITRON. But, the good news is that my recent conversations inside of NIELSEN suggest that they recognize the data short-fall and are working to rectify it."

JOHNSON continues, "ARBITRON reported how Americans used radio with their excellent 'Radio Today' yearly publications. The detail and quality of information 'Radio Today' provided improved every year. Vital baseline information about format Shares nationally and counts of stations within each format were spelled out in a table. 'Radio Today' detailed how people use radio. The publication also provided detailed breakouts on a host of performance barometers for all major and secondary radio formats. ARBITRON also offered subsets of radio’s performance in 'Public Radio Today', 'Hispanic Radio Today,' and 'Black Radio Today.' Each of those subset publications provided detailed information on the performance of formats within the public radio, Hispanic and African-American universes which basically paralleled the general 'Radio Today' format."